Daylight savings time makes little sense (column)

Daylight Savings Time recently began. I’ve managed to change most of the clocks so they’re being honest with me, but there are a few that still require attention. For now, I just have to remember to add one hour to whatever the clock is telling me.

I’ve managed to make the transition into Daylight Savings Time with relative ease; meaning I haven’t been late for anything due to any lying clocks and I haven’t had to embarrassingly admit that I have succumbed to the typical confusion that goes with Daylight Savings Time.

Every year, while I’m resetting the clocks, I ask myself what the point of Daylight Savings Time is. We aren’t actually saving any time. There are still 24 hours in the day and the sun still manages to shine the same number of hours, despite our devious clock-calibrating ways. I don’t think Daylight Savings Time has managed to save any daylight. It does lend credibility to the guise that it stays light much later into the evening, but it also stays dark later into the morning.

I fail to see what was accomplished with the switch. I’ve been told that the clock-changing ritual was implemented to help save electricity. Well, the last time I checked, my electricity bill didn’t decrease. I’m still guilty of using electricity. I may not use the electricity as much for that extra hour at night, but it sure is put to use for the extra hour of darkness in the morning. Maybe I’m just not aware of the technical sensibilities that go along with the staunch energy-conserving Daylight Savings Time ritual.

I have long been suspicious of the almost ceremonial daylight saving tradition, in part because of the hour of lost sleep that it imposes in the spring. I’m just not a fan of losing sleep. Supposedly, we’re a sleep deprived nation; Daylight Savings Time doesn’t help. In fact, I think that many people, me included, are worse for the wear.

It seems that the general principle behind Daylight Savings Time is essentially to manipulate time to keep the sunlight out later, plausibly making things easier. I just don’t understand it.

With all the digital-age hoopla and the techno-hype, it seems like it would be far easier to equip ourselves with some more lights rather than requiring the masses to re-set their numerous clocks twice a year.

With each bout of Daylight Savings Time, I’m reminded of just how many clocks I own. There are alarm clocks, clock radios, clocks on the appliances, wall clocks, decorative clocks, desk clocks, clocks on all our electronics, digital clocks, clocks in the car and clocks on our wrists. It makes me wonder if I’m really that preoccupied with time.

Good thing that it’ll be light out longer. Now I can correct all those clocks I overlooked on the initial DST run-through and I won’t even have to turn a light on to do it.

— Lindsay Sorenson is a Larsen resident. She can be reached at pcletters@postcrescent.com